Any suggestions for a good studio chair?

Droddey... been in Office Products for 40 years. There is a huge difference in the discount house chairs and a quality chair. HON is by far the leading chair maker with decades of experience. The ones that are good for you and would be considered an "all day" chair (as opposed to a 20 minute chair) is going to have ergonomic qualities.

The primary differences are going to come from:

Construction - Pick it up. A good quality chair is heavy. No if, and or buts.
Adjustments - Higher quality chairs have tons of adjustments to custom fit the posture to you. Lower quality basically go up and down and the back sometimes raises up and down.
Expense - While not always the case the better the chair... the more it cost. (***see below)
Fabric - The better the fabric the more it cost. Sometimes the same chair can be had in say an A,B or C fabric grade which affect the cost.

*** If you can go to a mom and pop office furniture store you can sometimes save money in these ways. A custom chair that was ordered and the fabric came in wrong. They are sometimes either stuck with it or it was comped to them so they have zero in it. Shipping chair mistakes back is not feasible. Also we order chairs in bulk for a local Air Force Base and also our College. We might have a customer order 90 chairs and maybe we get another level price break at 100 so we order 10 extra. Those 10 chairs are super high quality that we got a huge break on. We can pass that along to our customers. That's why I say try a mom and pop store and they can cover the chair adjustments with you. Makes a big difference. Might let you concentrate on your music instead of why your legs are going numb. The big box stores usually can't do anything more than telling you aisle 7.

I tried this chair in a local boutique recording studio and I loved it:

Herman Miller Aeron

I would have bought one for myself, too, until I saw the price tag. I'm still waiting for some competition in this high-end arena to bring in some similar features at a lower price point.

The Aeron thing looks nice. How much was it? I assume it's probably like $500'ish or something? That's way more than I can justify. I have to put as much as possible into the equipment and room treatment. I'll probably just end up hitting the local office supply place and see what I can find.

That's more reasonable. I'll have to see where I come out on funds in the end.

Yeh, that's the problem with my current chair (which will stay in the bedroom for software development after the studio moves to the other room.) It was quite solid and quiet for a while, but with some wear and tear it's loosened up a lot and has more creaks and groans (a lot like myself.)

ORIGINAL: droddey
...but with some wear and tear it's loosened up a lot and has more creaks and groans (a lot like myself.)

I resemble that remark!

I have a couple of office chairs in my home studio that I bought from the big box office supply stores- one without arms for playing bass/guitar and one with arms that I use for pretty much everything that I do at the computer. I also have a keyboard bench that I sometimes use for bass/guitar - works great but not the most stable. The chair with arms has a high back and excellent support, but does get a little squeaky on occasion. A little WD40 usually takes care of that. But here's a simple and free solution: stand up when recording. I do this when I'm tracking my singers' vocals - it prevents any chair-related noise, gets me off my a$$ for a few minutes at a time, and makes long sessions much easier on my back. It's even easier if you have something like an AlphaTrack or a Tranzport.

Dean - is the floor in your studio carpeted?

If the studio is going in a living room, and if you're pretty good at dealing with wire runs (which you obviously are), allow me to suggest for consideration an idea I've been kicking around for awhile:

Forget about the typical "office-style" setup for a control room and consider the possibility of a "living room" style studio, where you sit on the couch and have a computer keyboard/control surface on the coffee-table or on your lap or whatever, and your rackmount gear like end-tables on casters or some such. The TV screen becomes your computer monitor.

Computer-based recording makes such a setup entirely possible, and may provide a better listening position than the traditional face-in-front-of-a-computer screen setup. It could also make the room more comfortable and more versatile, both for recording purposes and for general hanging out.

There are obviously a lot of peripheral considerations, for instance if you use a large-format mixing console it would probably be impractical. But if you're a home producer working mostly or entirely in the box, then all you really need in reach is a keyboard, mouse, a patchbay and maybe a few of pieces of rackmount gear. Instruments and such could be set up to create a comfortable jam room.

Not so much a recommendation, just an idea to consider.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: droddey

These days though, you can't get anything that really sharp resolution at 1600x1200, much less at the 3200x1200 you'd get from a pair of 20" monitors. And I really need that much real estate to work productively myself (at least one 1600x1200 monitor, which is what I'll have, and two if I sell everything and have some left over.) Otherwise, it would be a nice idea and very comfy.

Well, I'm certainly not trying to push the idea down your throat, but I can't for an instant believe that someone with a home theater the likes of yours is not creative and capable enough to figure out a solution to *that* dilemma...

Cheers.

I like a high quality office swivelling chair with no arms. I can roll, spin, play guitar and keyboards and edit things. But I would always want something at least over $100 for comfort and good lumbar support.
Jim

ORIGINAL: mwd

ORIGINAL: droddey ~ The riser thing though leaks and it slowly sinks back down...

Interesting... the chair is still new.
The riser thing (pneumatic cylinder) should still be under warranty regardless if the head rest is broken off or not.
If it's slowly leaking that would be a manufacturers defect... if you care to pursue it I'm sure the manufacturer has a toll free number.

Yeah... it's worth a call at least. I've gotten replacement pieces and parts on lots of stuff (including furniture) for free just by calling a customer support line. The pneumatic riser sounds just like something that they could package up and send to you.

Yeah those Aeron chairs are awesome. We use them at work and I have a couple at home. Mine are all black though and no chrome like the pic, but still the same mechanically.

Balbs

I thought I'd revive this thread. I'm looking for a good chair to sit in all day. I've progressively gone up the 'office depot' type chairs. Started with the $40 then $70 then $100 chairs. But they all ended up hurting after a bit of sitting. However, $900 for a chair just doesn't seem to be able to register in my brain at this point. So what are you guys using to sit in all day that can be in the $150 or bellow range? What are you guys and gals using?

ORIGINAL: losguy

This is the absolute weirdest thing. I was looking for a computer chair for my kid, and wound up with a surprise find. Check out the IKEA SNILLE.

Looking at it, you'd think, "How could this ridiculous-cheap (and cheap-looking!) plastic chair ever pass for a comfortable studio chair?" That's what I thought, at least until I tried it out. Yes, the plastic is not soft like a cushioned cloth or leather fabric would be. But it is not completely hard, either. It has a slight "give", or "springy" feel. And then they molded the thing to the anatomical shape of a human posterior. It basically form-fits to your hind quarters like a glove.

What's surprising is that it's actually more comfortable than a cushioned chair at twice the price! I think it's because the cushion chairs have the cheap low-density type of foam in them, and not too thick besides (unless you spend maybe $200 or more on the chair), so when you sit on them, the foam, ahem, "bottoms out", and then your tailbone is in direct contact with a hard, un-anatomically flat surface. It's weird, but when I tried this ridiculous plastic SNILLE chair out with my desk, I could sit in it for hours without getting tired!

Another weird plus about this chair: It's quiet! Maybe it's the plastic "giving" like it does, but it's sort of like a shock absorber for the hardware. No groans or clicks when you twost or rock around on it.

Check it out if you can. At around 20 bucks, it's not much of a risk, and IKEA has an excellent return policy anyway.

That chair looks horrible! Have you tried it for long term sitting (8 hours or so)? I've got to go to IKEA anyway, so I'll check it out, but I'm highly dubious.....

Dean, you're gonna laugh, but I'm actually using a DRUM THRONE for my studio chair. I have a (short) history of back trouble thanks to injuries while I was a concrete test technician (summer job). I'm also a professional violinist, which can be pretty tough on the back, particularly an injured back. Add to that the fact that I've got a long torso, and I'm a great candidate for physical therapy.

That said, the drum throne, more so that any other chair I've used anywhere, requires that I sit upright with good posture. It also is incredibly easy to access and leave. So I find that:

1) While I'm on it, I sit correctly and strain my back less
2) Since I don't have to pivot or move it to get up, I get up and move subconsciously all the time. I'll find myself standing up to listen to a take or jumping up to grab something just a few feet away.
3) The posture that I have while sitting on the throne involves my leg muscles for balance and support. So it spreads the work of balancing my body to my largest muscles and keeps those muscles warm and active.

There was actually some recent research that points to long periods of sitting as a culprit for many Americans' weight problems. [My mom is an RD/LDN, so I talked to her about it.] Apparently there is some part of the metabolic functions that totally shuts down when one sits for a long time, resulting in a huge drop in burned fat (if I remember correctly - this is a bit out of my league). So the the drum throne is good for more than anatomical reasons.

If nothing else, it's cheap. You can get a simple but well-built throne from GuitarCenter for about $30. You might try it, because at that price you have nothing to lose. It's the best studio/computer chair I've ever found, in the 16 years or so that I've been tied to a computer. I've got mine set up at a height so that my knees are a few inches below the seat when my feet are flat on the floor.

NOTE: The throne was a bit uncomfortable for the first few days, until the seat pad broke in. I know that sounds kinda weird...but now you know.